A known form of automotive transmission employs a gear shift lever, which, when the transmission is in a neutral position, is movable laterally from a normal central position thereof to gear select positions on each side of the central position, subsequent to which the gear shift lever is moved either forwardly or reversely to engage a selected drive gear of the transmission.
Commonly, the gear shift lever is shifted leftwardly and forwardly to engage the first speed drive gear, is then moved rearwardly to engage the second speed drive gear, is then returned to its central position and is then moved forwardly to engage the third speed drive gear, is then moved rearwardly to engage the fourth speed drive gear, and, is then returned to its central position and is moved laterally to the right and then forwardly to engage the fifth speed drive gear.
Engagement of the reverse drive gear is accomplished by moving the gear shift lever to the right from its central position, and then, instead of shifting the gear shift lever forwardly to engage the fifth speed drive gear, the gear shift lever is moved rearwardly into reverse drive position.
In such a transmission, there is a danger that when moving the gear shift lever from the fifth gear drive position to neutral, the operator may inadvertently move the gear shift lever beyond the neutral position and overshoot into reverse drive position, with consequential clashing of the gears and possible damage thereto.
In order to overcome this problem, it has been prior proposed to incorporate a spring loaded latch into the transmission which prevents movement of the gear shift lever directly from a forward drive position to the reverse drive position. The prior known structure, however, suffers from the disadvantages that it is complex and expensive to manufacture and assemble, and, in the event of breakage of springs employed to return the latch to its inoperative position, the transmission is disabled in a position in which either the forward drive gear or the revers drive gear no longer can be engaged.